The reclamation of land consists of restoring the land’s functional or natural qualities by means of carrying out the necessary procedures such as: correcting the land profile, improvement of physical and chemical qualities of soil and regulation of water regime. Ecologically speaking, the reclamation is a process of the reconstruction of the ecosystem to fulfill required production and no-production functions of the land. The author points out the main types of reclamation: agricultural, forest, water and special one. The first part of the article deals with the history of reclamation, some of its legal and general aspects in Poland.